Naughty Neighbor

Chapter 10

At six the next morning, Louisa heard Pete stomp down the stairs. All night long she’d wrestled with her feelings, and she still hadn’t reached a conclusion. He knocked on her door, and she hesitated in answering. She sat hunched in her bed, covers pulled up to her chin, not sure what she should say to him. He knocked again, she sighed and went to the door.

“Morning,” he said, his face stiffening at the sight of her in her nightgown. “Looks like I’m going alone.” He had two suitcases, a laptop, and Spike in a cat carrier. The cab was waiting at the curb.

“I’m sorry,” Louisa said. “I can’t.”

He gave her a slip of paper. “If you change your mind, this is my address. There’s a map on the back, and my phone number.”

“How’s your cold?”

“I’ll live.”

They both stared down at their feet. The silence was awkward. Spike yowled, and the cabdriver beeped his horn. Pete said something rude in reply.

“Call me,” Louisa said.

“Sure.”

She adjusted his scarf. “Take care of yourself.”

“I will.”

“Will you be coming back to Washington?”

“Of course I’ll be coming back to Washington,” he said. “I live here.”

“Gosh,” Louisa said, “no need to get cranky about it.”

“No need to get cranky?” His voice rose an octave. “I asked you to marry me, and you turned me down as if I were yesterday’s potatoes! And besides, I have a cold. People are supposed to be cranky when they have a cold.”

He took a wad of tissues from his pocket and blew his nose. “If you have problems with the apartment, call the property manager. You have his number.”

He gave her a set of keys. “Keys to my apartment and keys to the Porsche. The Porsche is garaged on the street behind us. The number is on the paper I gave you. Use the car if you want.”

The cabdriver leaned on his horn. “I have to go,” Pete said to Louisa.

She bit down on her lower lip to keep it from trembling. “I hate good-byes.”

“The plane doesn’t leave until seven-thirty. There’s still time to change your mind.”

She shook her head.

He sneezed twice and blew his nose again. He picked up the cat carrier and trudged down the steps to the cab.

Louisa raised her hand to wave, but he never looked back. He was hurt and angry, she thought. She leaned her head against the doorjamb and watched the cab drive away.

“I can’t go with you,” she said. “I’m not a California person. I don’t tan well, I fall asleep on one glass of wine, I don’t know how to give fake kisses. What would I do if I got invited to a barbecue at Tom Hanks’ house?”

A blast of freezing air swirled up her nightgown, reminding her that she was standing on the porch. She shivered, as much from gloom as from cold, then firmly closed the door and retreated back to her warm bed.

She’d always imagined a marriage as being comfortably boring. It was a place to feel safe. A place to relax. She shook her head sadly. She’d never be able to relax in California.

To begin with there were all those starlets named Bambi. She peeked under the covers at her flannel-wrapped body. She’d have to get breast implants and liposuctioned if she wanted to compete with Bambi. She’d need lip augmentation to give herself that pouty look, and Mr. Ray’s hair weave, and rhinoplasty, and a full set of caps.

It took an hour and a half to go through all of the reasons why she couldn’t go to California. She ran out of reasons just as the paper thunked against the front door, so she threw the covers aside and swung her legs out of bed. She stuffed her feet into her slippers, belted her robe around her, and set forth to enjoy her morning ritual. She made the coffee, tuned in to NPR, read the paper, and ate an English muffin as a special treat.

At eight-thirty she dressed in sweats and sneakers and began cleaning her house. She vacuumed, polished, scrubbed, and scoured until every surface was shiny clean. She cleaned the toaster, the range hood, the oven, and the refrigerator. She cleaned her closets, rearranged her drawers, and put down her new shelf paper. She cleaned until eleven-thirty at night.

At eleven-thirty she stood in front of her full-length mirror and assessed her thighs. They didn’t need liposuction, but they weren’t up to Bambi’s standards, either. Louisa burst into tears and went to bed. Hormones, she told herself. She was just suffering a small endocrine imbalance. She was sure she’d wake up the following morning feeling peachy dandy.

The second day she did the laundry. She ironed all the sheets, pillowcases, and towels. She ironed her underwear, her jeans, and her T-shirts. She polished the leaves on her plants, scoured her garbage can, and tried to wash her car, but the water kept freezing.

She told herself she was doing all of these things because the following week she was going to do serious job hunting. Once she went back to work for real she wouldn’t have time to scrub the grout with a toothbrush, she told herself.

Deep down inside, she knew better. She’d known the moment the cab had disappeared from view. Maybe she’d even known sooner than that. Maybe she’d always known. She was going to go to California. She wasn’t sure what she’d do after she got there, but she was going all the same. And before she stepped off into the unknown, she’d needed to set her life in order.

She baked a double batch of chocolate chip cookies and ate half of them for supper. She put the rest of the cookies in a straw basket, wrapped it in cellophane, and tied the cellophane together at the top with a yellow ribbon. She packed two small suitcases with summery clothes and set them beside the front door. She hadn’t canceled her paper or emptied her refrigerator. She wasn’t sure how long she’d be gone. She painted her nails in bright red to bolster her self-confidence and went to bed.

Louisa’s mother looked at the newly polished houseplants sitting in her foyer, at the little black car sitting in her driveway, and at her daughter, dressed in a lemon-yellow linen suit.

“Let me get this straight,” her mother said, holding the basket of cookies. “You’re going to California.”

“Yes.”

“This is very sudden.”

“It’s something I have to do,” Louisa said.

“Like when you were seven and you had to see how a bathroom scale worked so you took ours apart? And when you were nine you had to see if you could climb to the top of the Szalagy’s oak tree, and the fire department had to come get you down?”

“Yup. Just like that.”

“I don’t suppose this has anything to do with your screenwriter friend?”

Grandma Brannigan stood in the kitchen doorway. “You aren’t going to go out there and live in sin, are you? You know what they say about giving out free samples, don’t you?”

“He’s asked me to marry him,” Louisa said.

“He don’t look like the marrying kind to me,” Grandma Brannigan said. “Besides, I saw that flashy car he drives. You know what they say about men who drive them fast cars. They say their body parts aren’t all what they should be.”

Louisa handed her mother a set of keys. “These are for my car and my house. I’ll call tomorrow and let you know where I’m staying.”

Grandma Brannigan made a disgusted sound with her tongue. “You hear that, Katherine? She don’t even know where she’s going to be staying. I wouldn’t let a daughter of mine go off like that.”

Louisa’s mother sighed. “She’s thirty years old, for goodness sakes.”

Grandma Brannigan looked confused. “How’d she turn out to be so old?”

Louisa smiled and hugged her grandmother. “I’ll see you when I get back. Try to behave yourself.”

“Are you going to marry him?” Louisa’s mother asked.

Louisa took a moment to answer. “I don’t know.”

She walked to the rental car counter at Los Angeles airport with shaky legs-but also with a sense of accomplishment. The plane hadn’t fallen out of the sky ahead of time, she hadn’t lost control of her body functions and embarrassed herself, and she’d barely whimpered on takeoff and landing. She’d even looked out the window once. It took two tries before she managed to sign her name to the rental agreement.

“I’m not a good flier,” she explained to the girl behind the counter. “I get a little nervous.”

“No kidding.” The girl gave Louisa a set of keys. “Flying’s the easy part. Wait’ll you try to drive yourself out of this airport.”

An hour later, Louisa was on Route 101, passing through Ventura. The air was warm and the sky was dusky. The Pacific Ocean rolled away to her left, as far as the eye could see. She was driving a new little compact, and she was feeling like Ferdinand Magellan.

California was more dust and dirt than she’d imagined. There were splotches of green where lawns had been watered, but the gentle hills that lay to the east were parched and sun bleached. Vistas were open, buildings were low.

Santa Barbara felt Spanish and upscale with its stucco buildings and red-tiled roofs. She rolled through town and headed east into Santa Barbara County, following Pete’s map. Fields were colored with wild poppies and lupine, and the sky melted into the land in a lavender haze as the sun sank lower.

She quickly realized she would never have found Pete without the map. Small roads snaked off into darkening woods. There were no names to the roads, and she suspected they were private drives. She passed several avocado orchards and an Arabian horse farm and hit another section of woods and little feeder roads. She scrupulously counted off the dirt roads and turned right where the map indicated.

After an eighth of a mile she came to an adobe gate house. The gate was open, and Louisa continued driving. Woods gave way to wild grasses, the road smoothed into a flawless ribbon of crushed yellow stone, and on a rise ahead of her she could see an adobe house. It was a sprawling ranch, capped in red tile, anchored by a thick profusion of flowers. It wasn’t especially large-two or three bedrooms, she guessed. She held her breath and prayed she was at the right house. Her stomach settled when she saw Spike sprawled on the front porch.

She felt a moment’s panic that Pete might not be alone or that he might have changed his mind. He hadn’t called as he’d promised, and neither had she. She’d been afraid the conversation might not go exactly right, and she’d chicken out. Now she wished she’d at least phoned from the airport and warned him.

She pushed the panic away and parked in the circular drive. She straightened her suit and marched up to the front door.

Pete answered on the second knock. He was wearing shorts and a gray T-shirt with cough syrup spilled down the front. “Oh no,” he said. “Not you.”

The panic came back in a hot wave that hit her square in the chest. “I should have called.”

He sneezed. “Stand back. I’m contaminated. I thing I’b god the flu.” He sneezed again and wiped his nose with the bottom of his T-shirt. “Sorry,” he said, “I’b run oud of tissues.”

“Is anyone taking care of you? You have a housekeeper?”

“Jus’ me and Spike.”

Louisa smiled. He needed her. The Hollywood Husband was out of tissues. No one was making him chicken soup or custard. No one was listening to him complain about how lousy he felt. “Why didn’t you call?”

“I’b been sick!” he wailed.

She looked around. This house was much more spacious than his Washington apartment. The furniture was southwestern. The floor was wide pine, and the aroma of flowers and baked grass drifted through the open patio door.

He sniffed, and she gave him some tissues from her purse. “Stay right here,” she said. “I’ll get you some toilet paper.”

“Don’t have any,” he said sadly. “Blew my nose in it all.”

“Okay, how about napkins.”

“None.”

“Paper towels?”

“All gone.” He flopped in a chair. “I’b a failure, Lou. I’b no gud ad being sick.”

“How much of that syrup have you had?”

“Nod enough. I ran oud, so I switched to brandy.”

“Oh boy.”

“And I’be been lonely, Lou. I’b missed you.”

“I’ve missed you too.”

“Did you come to marry me?”

“I’m thinking about it.”

“I’b glad,” he said. “I’b waited a long time for you. Years and years.” His eyes dropped closed, and he sighed. “I lub you.”

Two weeks later she was still thinking about marriage. She was thinking that it might not be so bad. Tom Hanks hadn’t called with a barbecue invitation, and she hadn’t met any women named Bambi. Not that it mattered, she told herself, because she was the new Lou, and she could handle whatever.

She was sitting on the front porch with Spike, and she was waiting for Pete to come home from the day’s shoot.

“No different from working at AT &T or General Dynamics,” Louisa said to Spike. “He goes out in the morning, and he comes home in the evening, just like any other man.”

A limo cruised by the gate house and began the climb to the top of the hill. It stopped in front of Louisa, and Pete got out, holding his laptop and the latest version of the script. He closed the door, and the limo took off down the hill. “Well, another day at the salt mines,” Pete said.

Okay, so maybe he wasn’t exactly like any other man, Louisa conceded.

He set the computer on the porch and pulled Louisa to her feet, kissing her fiercely, needing to make up for the time away from her. Immediately, he was hard and hungry, almost out of control. He stripped her shirt over her head, tugged at the closure on her bra.

Louisa gasped. “Good Lord, not on the front lawn!”

He hooked his thumb into the elastic waistband of her shorts and peeled them over her hips.

She reached for the shorts, but he’d been too quick. They were on the ground. She turned for the privacy of the house and found he was blocking her way. He kissed her again, pulling her tight against him.

“This is crazy,” she said, barely able to form the words, barely able to think for the sensations his mouth was causing. “Suppose someone’s in the woods? Or walking along the hilltop?”

His smile was dark and feral. “Then they’re going to get one hell of a free show. Would you like to be watched?”

“Well, actually…no.”

“Suppose you were the person in the woods, and you happened upon two people in the throes of passion. Would you close your eyes? Or would you enjoy the show?”

She had to think longer about that, and while she was thinking Pete cleverly found the perfect spot. “Have you decided yet?” he asked her.

Her voice was thick when she answered. “What was the question?”

He laughed and kissed her…slowly. Everywhere. She begged for release, and he gave it to her. Then he stripped and took her on the front lawn.

It was almost dark when they were done, and the air was deliciously cool on Louisa’s flushed skin. “Pervert,” Louisa said.

He eased his weight from her. “A man’s gotta do what a man’s gotta do.”

“Mmmm.”

“You seemed to like it.”

“I have to admit, doing it on the lawn held a certain allure, but I’m starting to feel a little weird.”

“Takes some getting used to,” he said.

“You’ve done this a lot?”

“No. But I’ve thought about it a lot. Mostly on the way home in the limo.” He raised his head and sniffed. “I smell meat loaf.”

“It’s dinner.”

“You made meat loaf for dinner?” He got to his feet and took her with him. “If I’d known there was meat loaf in the oven, I never would have bothered with sex.”

The cherry blossoms were blooming when Pete and Louisa returned to Washington. They stood on the front porch of the house on 27th Street, suitcases stacked at their feet, and they looked at the two front doors.

“We have sort of an odd problem here,” Pete said. “It looks to me like we’re at a crossroads in our relationship.”

Louisa steeled herself to a nervous flutter in her stomach. He hadn’t mentioned marriage for a month and a half, and she was scared to broach the subject. She opted for the safe, cowardly route. “I suppose we should move back into our own apartments.”

“Is that what you want?”

She could hear the wounded surprise in his voice and secretly rejoiced. The idea of living separately was just as abhorrent to him as it was to her.

In the past two months she’d come to appreciate Pete’s easygoing ways. His casual attitude about possessions and routine had made him a comfortable housemate. She thought it strange that those traits she’d originally hated in him were the very things she now found most appealing. And the little rituals of peace and solitude that had once been so important, now seemed sterile and distasteful. She enjoyed sharing her paper and her morning coffee. And she loved him. Lord, how she loved him.

“Well?” Pete asked.

“I’m thinking.”

He sighed and looked heavenward for patience. “Take your time.”

“You play your cards right, and I might consider marrying you.”

He flashed her a wide smile. “I knew you’d come around. What finally clinched it? Was it my charm? My superior intelligence? My studly butt?”

She shook her head. “It was your ventilation system.”

“You mean you’re marrying me because my apartment smells better than yours?”

“There’s more. Remember when you asked me what women wanted from a marriage and I said undying devotion and a warm place to put cold feet?”

“Uh-huh.”

“Can you guarantee me of both those things?”

“The undying devotion is easy. I don’t know about the cold feet. Which warm place did you have in mind?”

“You’ll never change,” she said. “Your mind is always in the gutter.”

“It’s my birthright.”

“It would have to be a church wedding,” Louisa said.

“Of course.”

“And Kurt couldn’t wear his watch cap and sweatshirt if he was best man.”

“Kurt wouldn’t be best man. My brother Chris would be best man.” Pete saw the look of relief on her face. Understandable, he thought. And because he didn’t want to ruin the moment for her, he didn’t have the heart to tell her about Chris. Besides, after Kurt, all those tattoos and the gold tooth might not seem so bad.